1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a process and an apparatus for the combustion and subsequent disposal of halogenated hydrocarbons.
2. The Prior Art
The disposal of halogenated organic materials formed as waste products in industrial halogenation processes give rise to difficult pollution problems. Since halogenated organic materials possess varying degrees of toxicity to plant and animal life, it is not desirable to dispose of them on land or at sea, and since their combustion products contain halogens and halogen acids which pollute the air, they are not suitably disposed of by using normal incineration techniques.
It has previously been proposed to combust halogenated organic materials in a refractory-lined furnace at elevated temperature, cool the hot combustion gases formed, remove the halogen acid components thereof and then discharge the remaining components of the gases to the atmosphere. Czekay et al. in British Pat. No. 1,070,515 discloses a controlled combustion process with subsequent hydrogen chloride recovery. Cull et al. in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,140,155 and 3,220,798 disclose a process and furnace apparatus capable of combusting halogenated organic residue materials to recover hydrogen halide therefrom. One of the difficult technical problems involved in combustion process is that the hot halogen acid-containing combustion products penetrate the refractory lining of the furnace and come into contact with the steel casing causing it to corrode. This eventually leads to a failure of the steel casing which results in shut downs in order to make the necessary repairs or replacements which, of course, are both expensive and time consuming. A proposed solution to this problem is to construct the casing from a special acid-resistant alloy steel. This, however, has a disadvantage in that it is expensive and moreover is not entirely satisfactory because even such alloy steels corrode to a certain extent in the presence of hot halogen acids.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to provide a process for the disposal of halogenated organic materials which does not create pollution and does not suffer from the above-mentioned disadvantages. A further object is to provide a reliable process for the combustion of halogenated organic materials in a furnace the steel casing of which is not significantly corroded by the hot halogen acid-containing combustion gases.